Friday, September 26, 2008

Lez Zeppelin

Last night MK and I had the drummer for Lez Zeppelin, Helen Destroy, over for dinner. Helen's a true vegan, so Wednesday evening I did a dry run dinner of stir fried veggies and marinated tofu. Cree declared it perfect, so of course for Thursday night's dinner I tinkered heavily with the recipe and preparation. It must've been ok because I'm now 785 days and counting without poisoning anyone.I can't tell you what a treat and thrill it was to meet Helen, one of the best drummers I've ever seen live. She pounds, and I mean pounds, such a thunderous beat that it throbs through you. Last night's show at Diesel in Pittsburgh was no different. The crowd, primarily straight white male ranging in age from barely legal to drink to 60+, just went wild for these musicians and there interpretations of the Led Zeppelin classics. The radio staples were all in the set list: "Whole Lotta Love", "Ramblin", "Kashmir", you name it. Everything except, oddly, "Immigrant Song", which is one of my favorites, so of course I noticed its exclusion.But no matter, the night was every bit as fun as the first time MK and I saw Lez Zep a year and half or so ago. Helen informed us that the band is leaving for a tour of Japan in a couple of weeks, and I just cannot imagine what it must be like traveling the world, playing the music that you love for frenetic - and almost creepy - adoring crowds.Really, I'm just so glad that we got to spend a couple of hours with HD before the show, break bread and chat. WE'd never met before and had only talked briefly online, so all three of us got to basically lay the ground work for what I hope will be a long friendship. Oh yeah, Bela really loved HD! Because we all know that if you can win over the dog, you're golden.One last footnote: Right before the first encore Caty and I made a dash for the restroom because it seems our tiny bladders cannot hold even one beer for more than an hour and a half. When we reemerged from the tidy row of toilet stalls, we didn't want to force our way back through the throng of seething mass crushing the stage, so we hung back. Right outside the men's restroom, as it were. There are no extras in the women's room, no attendant spritzing you with cologne or offering you a soft towel to dry your hands. But in the men's room, from what we could see, you could buy Doritos to enjoy while you stand at the urinal, or maybe you're in the mood for a lollipop. The attendant had so much stuff on display that I couldn't even register it all. And he kept shooting me dirty looks everytime he caught me staring. It's not like I could IN the men's room, I could only see the display of goodies. Of course there were the condoms, cigarettes, and little packets of Tylenol that you would expect. It was the individual serving bags of chips that threw me, and the candy and lollipops. Would you buy food in a public toilet? Even if it is all wrapped up. It just seems antithetical to the whole purpose of the toilet, not to mention the issues of hygiene and sanitation. Ah well. Now that I've got that out of my system, I highly recommend to my Japanese readers out there they catch a Lez Zep show while the women are on your Godzilla shadowed shores!And hey, Helen :)

i'm so impressed at your friendship with Helen....i'm an old Zep fan from the 70's & 80's so when i first heard the girls play their covrs, i was really taken with them. damn, i definitely live in the wrong country!